How the Sangh Parivar helps BJP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S-iqQLMsxo
Aug 9, 2021 Many of us know the close connection between the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. But how does it help the Sangh help the BJP on-the-ground?
Avishek Jha, “Expanding the Vote Base in Uttar Pradesh: Understanding the RSS-BJP Combined Mobilization Strategies”, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/7238
The Sangh Parivar has effectively dismantled the conventional understandings of Indian politics and challenged the ways in which it has been understood. As these findings suggest, the Sangh Parivar’s success comes from its ability to combine the different registers of Mandal and Mandir in a state like Uttar Pradesh, motifs that were previously used to differentiate between political parties. While Mandal signified the era of backward class politics led by the SP and the resurgence of the lower castes under the BSP, the RSS-BJP has combined it with its register of Mandir, the active use of religious nationalism and amalgamation of identities to turn the tables against the regional parties, who get beaten at their own game.
The RSS-BJP model of mobilizing voters works along three unique strands: creation of a majoritarian block while feeding on majoritarian impulses and an ability to mutate the definition of the Hindu identity, tactical response to local factors, and the utilization of a corresponding model of corporation-like voter management abilities. The RSS-BJP has been able to use the grammar of democracy, the rule of the majority via electoral competition, legitimately to further its political and electoral agenda, although this majority is bereft of identities that do not conform to the precepts of majoritarian identity or imagination.
The Sangh Parivar, over the years, has been blaming the Congress, and all like-minded secular parties, for appeasing the minorities, that is the Muslims, in exchange for support during the elections. This appeasement involves, according to the Sangh Parivar, “providing for minority rights in family and education among other things that goes against the spirit of religious equality and assurances given to Muslims in terms of educational or economic preferences.” Hilal Ahmed, “From Rajiv Gandhi to Modi, nobody defines ‘Muslim appeasement’ but all use it for votes,” The Print, November 14, 2018, https://theprint.in/opinion/from-rajiv-gandhi-to-modi-nobody-defines-muslim-appeasement-but-all-use-it-for-votes/148566/.